Create and manage an index in a
PDF

You can reduce the time required
to search a long PDF by embedding an index of the words in the document. Acrobat can search the index much faster
than it can search the document. The embedded index is included
in distributed or shared copies of the PDF. Users search PDFs with
embedded indexes exactly as they search those without embedded indexes;
no extra steps are required.

In Outlook and Lotus Notes,
you have the option of embedding an index when you convert email
messages or folders to PDF. This is especially recommended for folders
containing many email messages.

Update or remove the embedded index
in a PDF

Choose Tools > Document
Processing > Manage Embedded Index.

Click either Update Index or Remove Index.

About the Catalog feature (Acrobat
Pro)

You can define a specific group of PDFs as a catalog and create a unified index for that entire collection of documents. When users search the cataloged PDFs for specific information, the index makes the search process much faster.

When you distribute the collection on a CD, you can include the index with the PDFs.

Preparing PDFs for indexing (Acrobat
Pro)

Begin by creating a folder
to contain the PDFs you want to index. All PDFs should be complete
in both content and electronic features, such as links, bookmarks, and
form fields. If the files to be indexed include scanned documents,
make sure that the text is searchable. Break long documents into
smaller, chapter-sized files, to improve search performance. You
can also add information to a file’s document properties to improve
the file’s searchability.

Before
you index a document collection, it’s essential that you set up
the document structure on the disk drive or network server volume
and verify cross-platform filenames. Filenames may become truncated
and hard to retrieve in a cross-platform search. To prevent this
problem, consider these guidelines:

Rename files, folders, and indexes using the MS-DOS file-naming
convention (eight characters or fewer followed by a three-character
filename extension), particularly if you plan to deliver the document
collection and index on an ISO 9660-formatted CD-ROM disc.

Remove extended characters, such as accented characters and
non-English characters, from file and folder names. (The font used
by the Catalog feature does not support character codes 133 through
159.)

Don’t use deeply nested folders or path names that exceed
256 characters for indexes that will be searched by Mac OS
users.

If
the document structure includes subfolders that you don’t want indexed, you
can exclude them during the indexing process.

Adding metadata to document properties
(Acrobat Pro)

To make a PDF easier to search, you can
add file information, called metadata, to the document
properties. (You can see the properties for the currently open PDF by
choosing File > Properties, and clicking the Description tab.)

Note:

(Windows) You can also enter and read the data
properties information from the desktop. Right-click the document
in Windows Explorer, choose Properties, and
click the PDF tab. Any information you type or edit in this dialog
box also appears in the Document Properties Description
when you open the file.

When adding data for document properties, consider the following
recommendations:

Use a good descriptive title in the Title field. The
filename of the document should appear in the Search
Results dialog box.

Always use the same option (field) for similar information.
For example, don’t add an important term to the Subject option for
some documents and to the Keywords option for others.

Use a single, consistent term for the same information. For
example, don’t use biology for some documents and life sciences for
others.

Use the Author option to identify the group responsible for
the document. For example, the author of a hiring policy document
might be the Human Resources department.

If you use document part numbers, add them as keywords. For
example, adding doc#=m234 in Keywords could indicate a specific
document in a series of several hundred documents on a particular
subject.

Use the Subject or Keywords option, either alone or together,
to categorize documents by type. For example, you might use status report as
a Subject entry and monthly or weekly as a Keywords
entry for a single document.

If you already have specialized
training in Adobe PDF, you can define custom data
fields, such asDocument Type, Document
Number, and Document Identifier,
when you create the index. This is recommended only for advanced users
and is not covered in AcrobatComplete
Help.

Create an index for a collection
(Acrobat Pro)

When you build a new index,
Acrobat creates a file with the .pdx extension and a new support
folder, which contains one or more files with .idx extensions. The IDX
files contain the index entries. All of these files must be available
to users who want to search the index.

Dialog boxes in <span class="uicontrol">Acrobat Pro</span> for the
index-creation process

Choose Tools > Document
Processing > Full Text Index With Catalog, and then click
New Index.

Note:

If you don't see the Document Processing panel,
see the instructions for adding panels at Task
panes.

In Index Title, type a name for the index file.

In Index Description, type a few words about the type
of index or its purpose.

Click Options, select any advanced options you want to
apply to your index, and click OK.

Under Include These Directories, click Add, select a
folder containing some or all of the PDF files to be indexed, and
click OK. To add more folders, repeat this step.

Note:

Any folder nested under an included folder will also
be included in the indexing process. You can add folders from multiple
servers or disk drives, as long as you do not plan to move the index
or any items in the document collection.

Under
Exclude These Subdirectories, click Add, and select any nested folder that
contains PDF files you do not want to be indexed. Click OK and repeat,
as needed.

Review your selections. To edit the list of folders to
be included or excluded, select the folder you want to change and
click Remove.

Click Build, and then specify the location for the index
file. Click Save, and then:

Click Close when the indexing finishes.

Click Stop to cancel the indexing process.

Note:

If you stop the indexing, you cannot resume the same
indexing session but you don’t have to redo the work. The options
and folder selections remain intact. You can click Open Index select
the partially finished index, and revise it.

Note:

If
long path names are truncated in the Include These Directories And
Exclude These Subdirectories options, hold the pointer over each
ellipsis (...) until a tool tip appears, displaying the complete
path of the included or excluded folder.

Indexing Options dialog box

Do Not Include Numbers

Select
this option to exclude all numbers that appear in the document text
from the index. Excluding numbers can significantly reduce the size
of an index, making searches faster.

Add IDs To Adobe
PDF v1.0 Files

Select
this option if your collection includes PDFs created before Acrobat
2.0, which did not automatically add identification numbers. ID
numbers are needed when long Mac OS filenames are shortened
as they are translated into MS-DOS filenames. Acrobat 2.0 and later
versions automatically add identifiers.

Do Not Warn For Changed Documents When Searching

When this option is not selected, a message appears when
you search documents that have changed since the most recent index
build.

Custom Properties

Use this option to include custom document properties in the index; only custom document properties that already exist in the PDFs you index are indexed. Type the property, make a selection from the Type menu, and then click Add. These properties appear as a search option in the Search PDF window's additional criteria pop-up menus when you search the resulting index. For example, if you enter the custom property Document Name and choose the string property from the Type menu, a user searching the index can then search within the custom property by selecting Document Name from the Use These Additional Criteria menu.

Note:

When you create custom fields in a Microsoft Office application in which the Convert Document Information option is selected in the PDFMaker application, the fields transfer over to any PDFs you create.

XMP Fields

Use this option to
include custom XMP fields. The custom XMP fields are indexed and
appear in the additional criteria pop-up menus to be searchable in
the selected indexes.

Stop Words

Use to exclude specific words (500 maximum) from the index search results. Type the word, click Add, and repeat as needed. Excluding words can make the index 10% to 15% smaller. A stop word can contain up to 128 characters and is case sensitive.

Note:

To prevent users from trying to search phrases that contain these words, list words that aren’t indexed in the Catalog Read Me file.

Structure Tags

Use this option to make specific leaf-element tag nodes searchable in documents that have a tagged logical structure.

Note:

The Custom Properties, Stop Words, and Tags settings apply to the current index only. To apply these settings globally to any index you create, you can change the default settings for custom fields, stop words, and tags in the Catalog panel of the Preferences dialog box.

Catalog ReadMe files (Acrobat Pro)

It
is often a good idea to create a separate ReadMe file and put it
in the folder with the index. This ReadMe file can give people details
about your index, such as:

The kind of documents indexed.

The search options supported.

The person to contact or a phone number to call with questions.

A list of numbers or words that are excluded from the index.

A list of the folders containing documents included in a
LAN-based index, or a list of the documents included in a disk-based
index. You might also include a brief description of the contents
of each folder or document.

A list of the values for each document if you assign Document
Info field values.

If a catalog has an especially large number
of documents, consider including a table that shows the values assigned
to each document. The table can be part of your ReadMe file or a
separate document. While you are developing the index, you can use
the table to maintain consistency.

Revise an index (Acrobat Pro)

You
can update, rebuild, or purge an existing index.

Select Tools > Document
Processing > Full Text Index With Catalog, and then click
Open Index.

Locate and select the index definition file (PDX) for
the index, and click Open.

If the index was created with Acrobat 5.0 or earlier,
select Create Copy to create a new index (without overwriting the
earlier version), or select Overwrite Old Index to overwrite the
earlier index.

In the Index Definition dialog box, make any changes
you want, and then click the function you want Acrobat to perform:

Build

Creates a new IDX file with the existing information,
and updates it by adding new entries and marking changed or outdated
entries as invalid. If you make a large number of changes, or use
this option repeatedly instead of creating a new index, search times
may increase.

Rebuild

Creates a new index, overwriting the existing index folder
and its contents (the IDX files).

Catalog preferences (Acrobat Pro)

You
can set preferences for indexing that apply globally to all subsequent indexes
you build. You can override some of these preferences for an individual index
by selecting new options during the index-building process.

In
the Preferences dialog box under Categories, select Catalog. Many
of the options are identical to those described for the index-building
process.

Note:

The Force ISO 9660 Compatibility
On Folders option is useful when you don’t want to change long PDF
filenames to MS‑DOS filenames as you prepare documents for indexing.
However, you must still use MS‑DOS file-naming conventions for the folder
names (8 characters or fewer) even though this isn’t necessary for
the filenames.

Scheduled index updates (Acrobat
Pro)

Use the Catalog feature and a catalog batch PDX file (.bpdx) to schedule when and how often to automatically build, rebuild, update, and purge an index. A BPDX file is a text file that contains a list of platform-dependent catalog index file paths and flags. You use a scheduling application, such as Windows Scheduler, to display the BPDX file in Acrobat. Acrobat then re-creates the index according to the flags in the BPDX file.

To use BPDX files, in the Preferences dialog box under Catalog, selectAllow Catalog Batch Files (.bpdx) To Be Run.

Moving collections and their indexes
(Acrobat Pro)

You
can develop and test an indexed document collection on a local hard
drive and then move the finished document collection to a network
server or disk. An index definition contains relative paths between
the index definition file (PDX) and the folders containing the indexed
documents. If these relative paths are unchanged, you don’t have
to rebuild the index after moving the indexed document collection.
If the PDX file and the folders containing the indexed documents
are in the same folder, you can maintain the relative path simply
by moving that folder.

If the relative path changes, you must create a new index after
you move the indexed document collection. However, you can still
use the original PDX file. To use the original PDX file, first move
the indexed documents. Then copy the PDX file to the folder where
you want to create the new index, and edit the include and exclude
lists of directories and subdirectories, as necessary.

If the index resides on a drive or server volume separate from
any part of the collection it applies to, moving either the collection
or the index breaks the index. If you intend to move a document
collection either to another network location or onto a CD, create
and build the index in the same location as the collection.

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